Hacker News Reader

Comment by regnum | Hacker News Reader

Just to put these numbers into perspective, something the infographic fails to do even though it slaps on the label "Big Money", Americans spend 15x more on pet food than both political candidates and parties combined spend on political speech.

http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/Index.cfm?Page=USPetFoodSale...

View on HN

I don't know why comparing political donations to food puts these numbers in perspective. A better comparison is other nations fundraising.

Canadians spend less on campaigns than the "biggest spenders" on that chart combined, with 37 million citizens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_...

During the 2010 presidential election Brazilians spent $2 billion on campaigns and have ~200 million citizens.

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-24/world/world_global-campai...

From this tiny sample, it appears that the US is fairly average.

Has anyone compiled a fuller list of per capita campaign costs by country? I could find none.

Because pets are a luxury, but political participation is a necessity for the country to work properly.

Political donations are not a necessity for the country to work properly.

Pets may be a luxury, but once you have them feeding them is arguably a necessity. What's missing is whether they are buying more luxurious food than necessary.

Anyway, in the end it's a completely arbitrary comparison.

Point taken about having to feed them once you have them.

And I agree that political donations are not a necessity, but only if donations are banned, which is not the case. If your opponents are getting donations, then you are at a net loss if you don't. In that sense, being idealistic does not get you supporters, and donations really are necessary.

Feeding pets isn't a luxury. Without food, they die.

Americans spend about 2x more on Halloween candy ($2.2B)

That money will be spread rather evenly over the population such that everyone spends some small amount. What's scary about the political donations is that small groups of people with particular interests spend vast amounts of money; it's this part of the comparison that matters, not the total sum.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com